Warren mayor inherits a recalcitrant police chief

It would be nice not to have to write any more editorials about Warren Police Chief John Mandopoulos. Increasingly, however, it appears that time will come only when Mandopoulos is gone.
Before Michael O'Brien took over as the city's mayor this month, he expressed confidence in his ability to work with Mandopoulos. The chief obviously had issues with former Mayor Hank Angelo. O'Brien saw himself as a more accomplished people person, a better negotiator. He probably is, but those skills are of no use with a person who isn't interested in conciliation, isn't interested in listening to anyone and is set on doing only what he wants to do. Mandopoulos is that person.
Just last week, the chief denied a Vindicator reporter access to documents that were obviously public records and released them only after the mayor and law director made it clear that he had no choice. Mandopoulos apparently believes he is free to flout the state's public records law. It shouldn't take a reporter, a law director and a mayor to tell a police chief that the law is the law. A police chief is no more free to pick and choose those laws he would obey than anyone else.
That he would try is indicative of the bully boy tactics Mandopoulos is fond of pursuing. It's the way he treated his former bosses, the way he treats the press and the way he treats some members of the public. And the tone he sets has unfortunately been adopted by some of his officers.
He sets the standard
That tone results in officers who think it is perfectly all right to use their position to profit at an elderly woman's expense. (One of the reports that had to be pried from Mandopoulos' grip told of a detective who intercepted two pistols that a woman had turned over to another officer. Rather than place them in the evidence room where they belonged, he tried to buy them from her at bargain prices). Or arrest a citizen who was doing nothing wrong or threaten with arrest someone who had stopped to watch police officers as they questioned a group of juveniles in a public area. (The subject of another report Mandopoulos tried to keep under wraps.) Or to hoard in a police cruiser 14 drivers licenses that were improperly confiscated over a year's time from motorists -- and then complain when a supervisor goes into the cruiser and finds them. (That was another report Mandopoulos sat on.)
It's a tone that encourages illegal strip searches and that has resulted in complaints of police misconduct, especially from the minority community. It is a tone that inevitably damages the city's image and almost certainly will cost the city a large amount of money some day.
O'Brien thinks he can tie down the loose cannon that Mandopoulos has become. We don't think there is enough rope in the city of Warren to do that. And we suspect that there will be more editorials to write while he tries.